The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-10-20
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
smbiccG "lTnoccupicd EicIds.'

lAftec the church was full of people, ana
III IN adjoining rooms packed, as many
peopie went away from the doors as got IN,
TENT: "LeSt / should build upon another
mda'S }ouNd0tio,, N-Romans XIV, 20.
StirHug reports come from all parts of
Anlerca showing what a great work the
churches of God are doing, and | congratu-
late them and their pastors, Misapprehen.
slons have been going the rounds of some of
the religious pre- depreciating the goner-
oSity Of this church $751;, Sl62l have been
paid cash down in this church for religious
uses and Christian work during the nineteen
years OF my ministry here. This church was
built by all denominations of Christians and
by people from all lands, and hence we have
cen raising money for many objects outside
our denomination, and that has sometimes
lnteriered with our contributions to the
Boards of our denomination. Subscription
books for all good objects, Christian, humani-
tartan, collegiate, and missionary, have been
here as common as the daylight, and no
church in Christendom has been more con-
tlnuous in its benevo,euceS than this. Be
side that we have received during the year
US souls on profession of faith in Christ, q
fact that mention, not in Boosting, but to
show that this church has not been idle.
The most of our acceSSions have been from
the outside world, so that, taking the idea of
my text, we have not been building on other
peoples foundations
In laying out the plan of his missionary
tour Pau sought out towns and cities which
had not yet been preached to. He goes to
Corinth, a city mentioned for splendor and
vi Q, and Jerusalem, whore the priesthood
and the Sanhe Trim were ready to leap with
both feet upon the Christian religion He
feels he has especial work to do, and he means
to do it. What was the result. The grand
est life of usefulness that a nan ever Lived.
Initiate Paul We build on other peoples
foundations. IL we erect church we prefer
to have it filed with families, all of whom
have been pious Do we z ather a Sabbath
school class, We want good boys and girls,
hair combed, faces washed, manners attract
i've. So a church in this day is apt to be
built out of other churches. Some ministers
spend all their time in fishing in other peo-
pies ponds, and they throw the line into that
church pond and jerk out Methodist and
throw the line into another church pond and
BRING out Presbyterian, and there is a re-
ligious row in some neighboring church, and
whole school of fish swim off from that
pond, and We take them all in with one sweep
of the net, What is gained Absolutely
nothing for the general cause of Christ 1t
Is only as in an army, when regiment is
transferred from one division to another,
from the Tennessee to the Potomac.
What strengthens the army is new recruits.
What have always desired is that while we
are courteous to those coming from other
flocks, we build our church not out of other
churches, but out of the world, lest we build
on another mans foundation. The fact is
this is a big world. When, in our schoolboy
days, we learned the diam tier and circumfer-
ence of this planet we did not learn half 1t
has a latitude and longitude and diameter
and circumference of want and woe and sin
that no figures can calculate This one spir-
ltual continent of wretchednesS reaches across
all zones, and if | were called to give its geo.
graphical boundary would say it is bounded
on the north and south and east and west by
the great heart of Gods sympathy and love.
Oh, it is a great world. Since 6 o'clock this
morning 6OsOO persons have been born, and
all these multiplied populations are to be
reached of the Gospel. In England, or
in our eastern American cities, we
are being much crowded, and an acre of
ground is of great value, but out West 500
acres is small farm, and 10000 acres is no
unusual possession. But there is vast spir-
ltual field here and everywhere unoccupied,
plenty of room for more, not building on
mother mans foundation.
We need, as churches, to stop bombarding
the old ironclad sinners that have been proof
against thirty years Of Christian assault.
Alas for that church which lacks the spirit of
evangelism, spending enough on one chande-
her to light 500 souls to glory, and in one
carved pillar enough to have made thousand
men pillars in the house of our God for
ever" and doing less good than many log
cabin meeting house, with tallow candles
stuck in wooden sockets, and minister who
has never seen college or known the differ
ence between Greek and Choctaw. We
need as churches to get into sympathy
with the great outside world, and let them
know that none are SO broken hearted or
hardly bestead that will not be welcomed.
No" says some fastidous Christian, II
don't like to be crowded in church. Don't
put any one i'll my pew" My brother, what
will you do in heaven: When great null
tltude that no man can number assemblies
they will put fifty in your pew. What are
the select few to-day assembled in the Chris
tian churches compared to the mghtier mill
ions outside of them, eight hundred thousand
in Brooklyn, but less than ono hundred
thousand in the churches! Many of the
churches are like hospital that should adver-
tise that its patients must have nothing
worse than toothache or "rln-rounds, )" but no
broken heads, no crushed ank les, no fractured
thighs. Give us for treatment moderate sim
nerS, velvet coated sinners and sinners with
gloss on. 1t is as though man had
farm of three thousand acres and put all his
work on one acre, He may raise never so
large ears of corn never 50 big heads of wheat,
he would remain poor. The church of God has
bestowed its chief care on one acre, and has
raised splendid men and women in that small
Enclosure; but the field is the world That
means North and South America, Europe,
Asia and Africa and all the islands of the
sea. 1t Is as though after great battle there
were left 1000 wounded and dying on the
field, and three surgeons gave all their time
to three patients under their charge. The
Major General comes in and says to the doc
tors: Come out here and look at the nearly
VII fpr 1on Of al off 10,
No" say the three doctors, standing there
tanning their patients, 1--WE have three i'm
portant cases here, and we are attending to
them, and when we are not positively busy
with their wounds, it takes all our time
to keep the flies off. =" In this awful bat
tie of sin and sorrow, where millions have
fallen on millions, do not let us spend all our
time in taking care of few people, and when
the command comes: eco into the world,n
say practically, 'No cannot go; have here
few choice cases, and | am busy keeping off
the flies" There are multitudes to-day who
have never had any Christian worker look
them in the eye, and with earnestness in the
accentuation, say: "Come!" or they would
long ago have been in the kingdom NV
friends, religion is either a sham or a tremen-
dous reality. If it be sham, let us disband
our churches and Christian association If
it be a reality, then great populations are on
the way to the bar of God untitled for the
ordeal, and what are we doing!
In order to reach the multitude of out
siders we must drop all technicalities out Of
our religion. When we talk to people about
the hypostatic union and French Encyclo-
pediansm, and Erastinianism, and Complu-
tensianism. we are as impolitic and little
understood as if a physician should talk to an
ordinary patient about the pericardium and
intercostal muscle, and scorbutic symptoms.
Many OF us come out of the theological semi.
naries so loaded up that we take the first ten
years to show our people how much we know,
and the next ten years get our people to
know as much as we know, and at the end
md that neither of us know anything as we
ought to know. Here are hundreds and
thousands of shining, struggling and diving
people who need to realize just one thing
that Jesus Christ came to save them, and
Will save them now. But we 90 into pro-
found and elaborate definition of what itisti-
hcation is, and after all the worl. there are
not, outside of the learned professions, 5000
people in the United States who can tell
what justification is l will read you the
definition:
justification is purely forensic act. the
act OF ju1ge sitting in the forum. in which
the Supreme Ruler and Judge, who is ac-
countable to none, and who alone knows the
manner in which the ends of His universal
government can best be obtained, reckons
that which was done by the substitute in the